Fonts & Typography: The Secret CRO Ingredient

When you think about optimizing conversions I bet testing different fonts is not even on your mind.

You might rethink that.

Just like landing pages are your company’s book cover (homepage is a landing page too), fonts are a vital first impression when it comes to improving your conversion rates.

And even though your fonts are just a foundation behind your headline, you’ll be crazy to ignore them.

Don’t believe me? Here’s some proof:

When a new software company decided to optimize their conversions, instead of focusing on the regular checkout process, the button colors, or the value propositions, they decided to work on the fonts first.

Why Are Landing Page Fonts So Important?

What’s the average age of those visitors? Are they young or are they older?

The answer to that question could help determine which type of font you should test first.

Should you use a sans serif or serif font? What’s the difference?

The way I remember them: Serif fonts have those funny endings. Sans means literally “without”, so they don’t have those endings.

Serif fonts have been shown to be easier to read on printed material, while sans serif fonts have been shown to be easier to read on the web.

Sans serif fonts are usually used by more modern companies and brands that attract a younger audience, while serif fonts are geared towards the newspaper generation of older web surfers.

How Do Landing Page Fonts Affect Conversions?

To make things a bit simpler, understand that your font’s goal isn’t to evoke deep-rooted emotions or trigger some neurological rainbow of happiness in your visitors’ brains.

The goal of your font is simply to be read, without even noticing it.

See below how font variations impact conversion rates.

7 In-Depth Tips on Fonts

So which font elements can you test in your headlines and on your page to improve conversion rates?

1. Font Color

Sometimes contrast and color of font have more importance in performance than the typeface being used. You don’t need to test 40 shades of blue, like Google once did for their link colors, but you can test a few variations to see which one works best for your audience.

2. Font Size

The readability and legibility of your fonts depend largely on the font sizes you use.

Wichita State ran a study looking to find which font sizes of 10, 12, or 14 were easiest and quickest to read.

The result? Font size 12 won.

Now keep in mind that different screen sizes have different resolutions and your headline, for example, should have a bigger font size compared to your supporting landing page copy.

Bigger isn’t always better.

3. Font Type

The visual shapes of the fonts you choose have a dramatic importance on how fast people are able to read and skim your landing page.

A study by Microsoft and MIT tested whether typography could affect mood and cognitive performance (the ability to process and understand information).

They decided to split up the participants between bad and good typography (see above).

The results? The good typography group finished 52% of the task while the bad typography group was only able to finish 48% of the task.

4. Font Weight

The width and relative “thickness” of your fonts (specifically in your landing page headline and subhead) should be tested as well.

5. Line Spacing

No one’s gonna convert on your landing page if they have a hard time reading what you wrote.

A simple fix that can help increase your conversion rates is to play around with line spacing to free up white space.

By making your writing more easy to digest in a visual way, you’ll get a lot more people starting to read your paragraphs compared to now even wanting to start the reading at all.

Your actual copywriting skills will then decide whether the visitor will continue to read.

6. Line Width

If you go too wide, then people will have a hard time focusing on the text.

If you go too narrow, then you may break the readers’ rhythm.

Test out any long copy you have by messing around with the widths, and use a tool like HotJar to measure how far down visitors scroll before and after your changes.

7. Line Breaks

Line breaks are similar to line widths.

They also make it easier and quicker for your visitors to read and understand your copy when used correctly.

By making sure you give your sentences more breathing room, you can make sure you give your conversions the best chances of happening too.

Conclusion

By now you should know that fonts are important, and not just for the looks. They can have big performance impacts if used the right way.

While there’s never a clear font winner for all purposes, it’s obvious to say that each landing page can be improved with font testing.

As you go through this and start testing fonts, remember this:

The best font choices are ones where visitors don’t notice the font, but notice the message.

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